HUD gets advice from OCC in writing new lender rules.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans a more active role in combating discrimination by mortgage lenders and could adopt rules that echo the ones imposed on commercial banks.

Laurence Pearl, director of HUD's Office of Program Standards and Evaluation, told participants at a Consumer Bankers Association workshop that HUD is working with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on rules defining what constitutes lending discrimination. He didn't give a timetable for those rules or elaborate on their content.